We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
With regard to sacred books, Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism (1805 – 1844), is best known for his publication of the Book of Mormon, as a history comparable to the Bible, and for other texts he put forth as divine revelations. These volumes established the unique beliefs of Mormonism and set it apart from other religions. What is less well known and often overlooked by historians is the fact that virtually every aspect of Joseph Smith's career involved the Bible, which was central to his theology and to the religious system that he established – but always in ways unique to him. Priesthoods of Aaron and Melchizedek, the building of temples and the establishment of communities in promised lands are all themes for which he invoked biblical precedents. He also produced, but never published in his lifetime, a revision of the Bible itself, the result of three years of adding to and editing the text. In addition, as he taught doctrine in his correspondence, newspaper editorials and sermons, he drew his texts and illustrations from the Bible and virtually never from the Book of Mormon or his own revelations. This article explores the role of the Bible in each of these enterprises and examines the ways Joseph Smith used it in the establishment of Mormon beliefs. The article proposes that, in his extensive use of the Bible, he was making a statement regarding his prophetic authority and his relationship to prophets and scriptures of the past.
1 The best biography of Joseph Smith is Bushman, Richard L., Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Knopf, 2005)Google Scholar.
2 See Brodie, Fawn M., No Man Knows my History: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, 2nd edn, rev. and enl. (New York: Knopf, 1971)Google Scholar; Hill, Donna, Joseph Smith, the First Mormon (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977)Google Scholar.
3 For Mormonism's use of the Bible in general, see Barlow, Philip L., Mormons and the Bible: The Place of the Latter-day Saints in American Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991)Google Scholar; and Irving, Gordon, ‘The Mormons and the Bible in the 1830s’, BYU Studies 13/4 (Summer 1973), pp. 473–88Google Scholar. Bushman does a better job than did previous biographers in noting the role of the Bible in Joseph Smith's work. See Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, pp. 130–43.
4 See Joseph Smith, ‘History, 1834–1836’, pp. 120–1; and ‘History, 1839’, pp. 2–3, in Dean Jessee, C. (ed.), The Papers of Joseph Smith, vol. 1, Autobiographical and Historical Writings (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1989), pp. 125–7, 271–2Google Scholar.
5 See ‘History of Smith’, Joseph, Times and Seasons 3/12 (15 April 1842), pp. 753–4Google Scholar. The passages were Malachi 3 (‘part’); Malachi 4:1–6; Isaiah 11:1–16; Acts 3:22–3; Joel 2:28–32.
6 See ‘Letter IV. To Phelps, W. W., Esq.’, Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate 1/5 (Feb. 1835), pp. 77–80Google Scholar; ‘Letter VI. To W. W. Phelps, Esq.’, 1/7 (April 1835), pp. 108–12; ‘Letter VII. To W. W. Phelps, Esq.’, 1/10 (July 1835), pp. 156–9.
7 See, for example, Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 13:20–8.
8 On this last point, see Barlow, Mormons and the Bible, pp. 26–32. Barlow seems to hint, correctly in my view, that explanations proposed so far have come short of accounting for the quantity and application of biblical language in the Book of Mormon. Ibid., pp. 31–2.
9 Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 13:40.
10 See Givens, Terryl, By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 185–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 See Campbell, Alexander, Millennial Harbinger 2/2 (7 Feb. 1831), p. 93Google Scholar.
12 See Doctrine and Covenants 20:8–12.
13 Historian Jan Shipps calls the Latter-day Saint faith ‘a new religious tradition’. See Shipps, Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1985). In some circles, Mormonism is viewed as altogether non-Christian, but not always for the same reasons. See Jackson, Kent P., ‘Are Mormons Christians? Presbyterians, Mormons, and the Question of Religious Definitions’, Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 4/1 (Oct. 2000), pp. 52–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
14 Doctrine and Covenants 76:25.
15 All Bible passages quoted are as in Joseph Smith's personal copy, a King James Version printed in 1828 by H. and E. Phinney, Cooperstown, New York.
16 Doctrine and Covenants 76:19–20.
17 Doctrine and Covenants 76:51–3.
18 One recent study identified about ninety biblical phrases in a March 1831 revelation (Doctrine and Covenants 45); Foster V. Hall, personal communication.
19 See Scott H. Faulring, Kent P. Jackson and Robert J. Matthews (eds), Joseph Smith's New Translation of the Bible: Original Manuscripts (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2004). Latter-day Saints today generally refer to it as the Joseph Smith Translation.
20 13 April 1843, recorded by Richards, Willard, in Ehat, Andrew F. and Cook, Lyndon W. (eds), The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1980), p. 191Google Scholar.
21 Old Testament Manuscript 2, p. 10; Faulring, Jackson and Matthews, Joseph Smith's New Translation of the Bible, p. 603.
22 ‘The Elders of the Church in Kirtland, to their Brethren Abroad’, The Evening and the Morning Star 2/18 (March 1834), p. 143.
23 The Holy Scriptures, Translated and Corrected by the Spirit of Revelation. By Joseph Smith, Jr., the Seer (Plano, IL: The [Reorganized] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 1867). This publication is substantially edited from the original MSS. The most recent edn is dated 1991.
24 The evidence is collected in Robert J. Matthews, ‘Joseph Smith's Efforts to Publish His Bible Translation’, Ensign (Jan. 1983), pp. 57–64.
25 ‘A Translation’, Times and Seasons 3/9 (1 March 1842), p. 704.
26 See Times and Seasons 3/9 (1 March 1842), pp. 703–6; 3/10 (15 March 1842), pp. 719–22; 3/14 (16 May 1842), p. 783.
27 Pearl of Great Price, Abraham 3:24–6.
28 After the winter of 1838–9, only Doctrine and Covenants 124–6 contain revelations in God's words. Sections 127 and 128 come from letters written by Joseph Smith, and sections 129–31 are excerpts from his teachings to groups of followers. Section 132 was revealed in the 1830s but was not recorded until 1843.
29 See Doctrine and Covenants 35:23; 100:9–11.
30 See Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, throughout.
31 8 April 1844, recorded by William Clayton; Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, p. 363.
32 Joseph Smith mentioned ‘the great benefits to the world which result from the Book of Mormon and the revelations, which the Lord has seen fit in His infinite wisdom to grant unto us for our salvation, and for the salvation of all that will believe’. Smith, Joseph, History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. Roberts, B. H., 2nd edn rev. (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1957), vol. 1, p. 235Google Scholar.
33 High council minutes, 21 April 1834, Oliver Cowdery, clerk; in Collier, Fred C. and Harwell, William S. (eds), Kirtland Council Minute Book (Salt Lake City, UT: Collier, 1996), p. 37Google Scholar.
34 See the list in Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, pp. 421–5, and the Old Testament list in Grant Underwood, ‘Joseph Smith's Use of the Old Testament’, in The Old Testament and the Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City, UT: Randall, 1986), pp. 399–411. In Ehat and Cook's scripture index, most of the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants references are not in Joseph Smith's discourses but in the editors’ notes. A published collection of his commentary on the Bible shows that Joseph Smith most frequently discussed passages from the following books, listed in order of his greatest use (total page numbers in parentheses): Matthew (41), Genesis (26), John (14), Revelation (14), 1 Corinthians (13), Hebrews (12), Isaiah (11), Acts (11), Luke (10) and Malachi (8). See Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith's Commentary on the Bible, comp. and ed. Kent P. Jackson (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1994). Some of the commentary comes from his letters and journal entries, but much more comes from his Nauvoo discourses. The individual passage he discussed most extensively was Malachi 4:5–6. Underwood's study, which includes not only commentary but all allusions to, and borrowed or quoted vocabulary from, the Old Testament, lists Isaiah, Psalms and Genesis as the most-cited Old Testament books.
35 See Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, pp. 38–44, 50–1, n. 1.
36 13 Aug. 1843, recorded by Willard Richards; Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, p. 238.
37 12 Nov. 1843, recorded by William Rowley; Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, p. 258.
38 Cited in Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, p. xx.
39 7 Oct. 1857; Journal of Discourses (London: Latter-day Saints’ Book Depot, 1855– 86), vol. 5, p. 332.
40 ‘When I say Doctor & Lawyer I mean the D & L of the scriptures’. 7 April 1844, recorded by William Clayton; Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, p. 358.
41 7 April 1844, recorded by William Clayton; Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, p. 359. Transcriptions of Joseph Smith's discussion of Bible passages with capitalisation, punctuation and spelling standardised can be found in Smith, Joseph Smith's Commentary on the Bible.
42 5 Jan. 1841, recorded by William Clayton; Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, p. 60.
43 7 April 1844, recorded by William Clayton; Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, p. 357.
44 Summer 1839, recorded by John Taylor; Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, pp. 8–9, 10.
45 Before 8 Aug. 1839, recorded by John Taylor; Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, p. 9.
46 16 July 1843, recorded by Franklin D. Richards; Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, p. 232.
47 According to Latter-day Saint belief, Elijah appeared to Joseph Smith on 3 April 1836 and dispensed to him the ‘sealing power’ by which actions bound on earth are bound also in heaven; see Doctrine and Covenants 110:13–16.
48 12 May 1844, recorded by George Laub; Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, pp. 370–1.
49 5 Jan. 1841, recorded by William Clayton; Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, p. 59.
50 16 April 1843, recorded by Willard Richards; Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, p. 196.
51 Mathew S. Davis to Mary Davis, 6 Feb. 1840, in Smith, History of the Church, vol. 4, p. 78.
52 See Givens, By the Hand of Mormon, pp. 63–5, 196.
53 See also Underwood, Grant, ‘Book of Mormon Usage in Early LDS Theology’, Dialogue 17/4 (Autumn 1984), pp. 56–60Google Scholar; and Givens, By the Hand of Mormon, pp. 240–6.
54 ‘To the Saints Scattered Abroad’, Times and Seasons 1/12 (Oct. 1840), p. 178.
55 ‘The Temple’, Times and Seasons 3/13 (2 May 1842), p. 776.
56 Doctrine and Covenants 20:11, emphasis added.
